People with a history of poor mental health were more likely to face psychological and financial problems during the pandemic: Dragana Gordic/Shutterstock More than a million people in England are waiting for mental health support due to soaring demand exacerbated by the pandemic. On top of this, an estimated eight million people with mental health …
Britain’s wild woods are under threat and we’re running out of time to save them: Passing By / shutterstock The UK has a strange relationship with its woodlands. Trees and woods form part of the national identity, yet with only about 13% tree cover, it is one of the least wooded countries in Europe. Ancient …
We’re a step closer to learning how misplaced DNA could influence disease risk: Shutterstock DNA is our body’s instruction manual. It contains all the information that our cells need to make proteins and other molecules vital for our development, growth and survival. We inherit two different types of DNA from our parents: nuclear and mitochondrial …
The multiverse: how we’re tackling the challenges facing the theory: Mike Workman/Shutterstock The idea of a multiverse consisting of “parallel universes” is a popular science fiction trope, recently explored in the Oscar-winning movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. However, it is within the realm of scientific possibility. It is important to state from the start …
Antidepressant withdrawal should be taken seriously – we’re investigating ways to help people come off the pills: Misinformation about antidepressants is rife and is probably fuelling their rise in use. Chief among these false ideas are: Antidepressant withdrawal effects are mild and only last two to three weeks, with any severe symptoms interpreted as a …
COVID, bird flu, mpox – a virologist on why we’re seeing so many viruses emerge: Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock From the widespread outbreak of mpox (formerly called monkeypox) in 2022, to the evolving bird flu situation, to recent cases of Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea, COVID isn’t dominating the headlines as much as it used to. Instead, …
Were there gladiators in Roman Britain? An expert reviews the evidence: The Colchester vase, dating to the later second century AD. Following Hadrian/Flickr, CC BY-SA In 1853, a Roman vase was found being used as a container for ashes in a grave outside Roman Colchester. Dating to the later second century AD, it depicted four …
Why thousands of people who thought they were British could lose their citizenship: Max_555/Shutterstock Confusion has arisen around the British government’s own understanding of its citizenship laws, following a judgment by the UK’s high court. In a ruling handed down on January 20 2023, in the case of Roehrig v Secretary of State for the …
Scientists ignored animal clitorises for centuries – now we’re discovering just how varied they are: Mikhaylovskiy/Shutterstock The sometimes astonishing sex lives of animals are well known, especially the huge range in penis structures, evolved to increase the number of offspring that males father. For example, ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises, and echidnas (also known as spiny …
Water ATMs were introduced in Ghana – and are changing the way people can access this vital resource: A water-vendor collects water in jerrycans to sell. TONY KARUMBA/AFP via Getty Images Universal, safe and reliable water access is a pressing need in the global south. One-quarter of the world’s population don’t currently have access to …
Prince Harry says his military kills were like chess pieces – the problem of seeing war as a game: Amid the many salacious revelations in Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, one of the most concerning was not about his family. Harry revealed that he killed 25 members of the Taliban while serving in Afghanistan, and that …
Noise pollution: how the sounds of the city were redefined as ‘urban music’ in 1920s Japan: Cash machines, elevators and escalators that talk. Jingles in department stores, train stations, supermarkets and shopping arcades. Loud speaker warnings about the dangers of riding on the bus or train, overlayed by sirens, car horns, traffic and pedestrians. “For …
How 1950s bombsites in the UK were turned into adventure playgrounds: Lollard adventure playground, Lambeth, London, 1955. theirhistory | flickr, CC BY-NC-SA In 1944, Marie Paneth, an Austrian-born art therapist, imagined a scheme whereby London’s bombsites would be used by local children for building huts and caves and for growing vegetables which they could then …
Medieval great halls were at the heart of the festive season – here the community kept warm by staying together: Getty Open Collection, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The great hall is one of the most enduring images from the middle ages – and with good reason. Surviving written sources as well as …
1.5°C: where the target came from – and why we’re losing sight of its importance: Javier Ballester/Shutterstock The US economist William Nordhaus claimed as early as the 1970s, when scientific understanding of climate change was still taking shape, that warming of more than 2°C would “push global conditions past any point that any human civilisation …
A dangerous pesticide isn’t being monitored in key bird of prey populations – we’re shedding light on that gap: GettyImages It was once regarded as a miracle chemical to protect against disease and improve global food production. The man who discovered its properties even won a Nobel Prize for medicine. But today, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is …
The best fiction of 2022: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s When We Were Birds – an exquisite exploration of love and legacy: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo c Penguin Books USE Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel When We Were Birds is a spellbinding, beautifully told blend of love story and magical realism ghost story. When We Were Birds book …
We were told to ‘stay home’ to stop COVID. Then our homes became disease hotspots: Lucigerma/Shutterstock The rapid rise in COVID cases and deaths in March 2020 led Boris Johnson, then prime minister, to tell the British people: “You must stay at home.” These comments marked the beginning of the first nationwide COVID lockdown, and …